GOVT'S INADEQUACY IS COSTING TAXPAYERS A FORTUNE

The failure of the Government to adequately plan for personnel retirement, relief cover and other staff issues at St Bernard’s Hospital is costing the taxpayers of Gibraltar a fortune. The provision of locum cover on the retirement of the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist resulted in an expensive bill based on a cost of over £7000 a week, and the cost of locum cover for the radiology department stood at over £300,000,says the Opposition statement issued today.

In the recent budget debate in Parliament,it adds,the Government revealed that the cost of relief cover had spiralled out of control to the extent that responsibility for the money had been removed from the GHA and passed on to the Treasury. In 2010/2011, for example, it had been estimated that relief cover would cost the GHA £1.4 million and this ended up costing more than double at £3.6 million. The Opposition considers that passing control to the Treasury may not be the answer to the problem and that the Government should not have allowed the expense to get out of hand in the first place. The danger is that patients now could be left without proper cover on the basis of spending priorities dictated by the Treasury instead of on medical considerations determined by the GHA.

It is obvious that the Government could have saved money with better planning which could have avoided the need for the financial constraints that are now being implemented.

The Consultant ENT Specialist at St Bernard’s Hospital, for example, retired on 24th September of 2010. Parliament was told that the replacement Consultant started working in the week beginning 10th January 2011. The Government is on record as having said that the cost of the current coverage plan is dependent on the nature of the locum cover obtained. They said that this was expected to be about £46 per hour and therefore approximately £7700 per week. Given that the post was not filled for about 15 weeks and using the information supplied by the Government, it means that the maximum potential liability for the taxpayer was in the region of £115,500.

It is quite remarkable that provision was not made to fill this post earlier given that the retirement date of the last ENT specialist is something that the GHA and the Government should have been aware of all along. Indeed, it may even have proved helpful and beneficial to the new incumbent to have worked in parallel with the outgoing one for a short period of time in order to ensure that there was an element of continuity of service as one specialist passed on work to the other.

Moreover, the fact that the post was not advertised until June 2010, only three months before the ENT specialist retired, shows that the matter was not handled properly. Given the length of time that it takes to recruit staff and the experience of these delays that the GHA have had in other posts, it would have been logical to have advertised well in advance in order to ensure that no locums were needed to provide cover in between. The Minister herself is on record as having said that she cannot say when the GHA realised that the post was going to become vacant and her excuse for the delay that they wanted to recruit two instead of one does not hold water because they still could have advertised the post earlier.

Against this background and in different circumstances it should be noted that the cost of providing cover in respect of the radiology department since the dismissal and suspension of each of the radiologists contracted by the GHA was given as £303,639 earlier this year.

Commenting on the matter, Shadow Minister for Health Neil Costa said:

“It is regrettable that payments for the shortcomings of the Government are costing the Health Service money that could be better spent for the benefit of patients. The Government should never have allowed these matters to get so out of hand.”